


Dear Beautiful

by likearushtothehead



Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris, True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Bossman Eric, Christmas Eve, Christmas Party, F/M, Love Confessions, Love Letters, Mistletoe, Office Party, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearushtothehead/pseuds/likearushtothehead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dear Beautiful,<br/>I’m not brave, or strong, or smooth, so I could never tell you my true feelings in person. I couldn’t even bear the thought of walking up to you and confessing my love, because I know you don’t love me back and I wouldn’t be able to take the rejection. It’d kill me. So, I decided to write you this letter, telling you that I love you.<br/>I love you, my angel.<br/>A Friend.</p>
<p>or,</p>
<p>Sookie has a secret admirer in her office who writes her letters. Everyone wants to know who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Beautiful

Dear Beautiful,

I’m not brave, or strong, or smooth, so I could never tell you my true feelings in person. I couldn’t even bear the thought of walking up to you and confessing my love, because I know you don’t love me back and I wouldn’t be able to take the rejection. It’d kill me. So, I decided to write you this letter, telling you that I love you.

I love you. I really and truly do. It’s hard for me to say that, but it’s true. You are the reason I get out of bed in the morning. You’re the reason I come into work day after day. You’re the reason I keep on living day after day. Without you, I doubt I’d have the strength to live.

Every day I see these men walking up to you, they don’t deserve you. They don’t love you. I love you; I just wish I deserved you. You are 50 of me, easily. You are so much more then I could ever aspire to be. You don’t know it, but you are the most impressive and intelligent person I have ever met.

I could try to list the reasons why I love you, but the list would be endless and I would still not do you justice. So I’m just going to tell you that you are the reason I’m breathing, the reason I’m smiling, because I get to see you smile. You are the most beautiful, creative, amazing person I have ever met and I will love you forever, even if you don’t know that I exist.

I love you, my angel.

A Friend.

 

Sookie read the letter once again while sitting at her desk. By now she had read it at least 100 times over, trying to figure out who had wrote her the letter. She couldn’t believe that someone she knew was in love with her, and then decided to write her that beautiful letter telling her that. She smiled softly as she held the letter in her hands, only for it to be snatched out of her grip quickly.

 

“Hey! That’s personal!” Sookie yelped, jumping out of her chair to see that her boss had been the one to take the letter from her.

 

“Well it might be personal, but this is during work time, so I have the right to look at it.” Her boss says with a smirk as he reads the letter. She had begun working for him just over a year ago when a friend of hers had recommended her designs for his clothing line, Fangtastic. Sookie had been designing clothes in her spare time from collage and her friend just happened to be Eric’s third cousin or something like that. So he had given Eric a couple of designs and she almost immediately got a call saying she had a job as soon as she was done with collage.

Eric was a great boss. On her first day he showed her around and introduced her to everybody. He had showed her where her desk was and talked to her about the ins and outs of the office to make sure she was comfortable. She seemed pretty calm and confident that day, but on the inside all she wanted to do was scream because Eric Northman was talking to her, standing beside her, dragging her by the hand around the office to show her cool stuff. As the months went by, the excitement faded as the pair became friends, not that he knew she was fangirl-ing over him on the first day, but still.

They were more than just boss and worker, the other designers noticed, they had a special friendship. One the both of them couldn’t even understand. So Sookie didn’t mind Eric reading her love letter, even if she did get a bit embarrassed.

“Ooh, we have an admirer, do we?” Eric asks with a tight grin on his face. Sookie blushes and looks down, waiting patiently until he finishes reading the letter and handing it back to her. She takes it and puts it into the top drawer at her desk, full of scraps of paper and hidden candy. There were also a few pictures of her family in there and one of Eric’s guitar picks. One she had gotten on her second day on the job when she found him playing guitar in his office.

“Uh, yeah I guess.” Sookie replies, brushing her blond hair away from her face. Eric notices the awkward reluctance in her voice and smiles at her before moving to sit on her desk.  

 

“You guess?” He laughs softly, placing one hand flat on the desk and the other on the back of Sookie’s chair for support.” It really sounds like this guy is in love with you. Don’t you think?” Eric asks and Sookie nods, frowning softly.

“I just wish I knew who was in love with me though…“ Sookie mumbles sadly and Eric shakes his head.

“I doubt it would make a difference… this guy seems really sure that you don’t love him back.” Eric states, and Sookie nods in understanding.

“Yeah… I guess so. But I might still go around and ask a few of the girls later… see if they know anything. I’d still like to know who it is. I think I should have the right to know.” Sookie tells him, taking some designs out of her drawer to work on. Eric watches as she grips her pencil tightly and begins to sketch lines into the sheet of paper. He smiles slightly at the little pout on her face as she draws a skeleton holding a sign with the brand’s name on it in capitals. His eyes flicker to her hand, to her lips, to her eyes, and back down to the pencil in her hand.

“Sookie.” Eric whispers, trying to catch her attention. “Sookie.” He repeats softly, without a reaction from the girl. She was too engrossed with her work to hear the man beside her as he called her name. Eric sighed softly in defeat before jumping off her desk and waking back into his office. It’s as if she doesn’t realise he exists.

Eric sighs as the opens up the Microsoft Word on the laptop in his office, and begins to type.

 

 

Dear Angel,

Don’t worry about me. Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t try to ask people in the office who I am. I know you’ve been trying to figure out who I am but please, my beautiful Angel, don’t. You can’t know who I am, because I don’t want to ruin our friendship because of this. So please, for me, just forget about who I am and focus on what I am telling you.

I love you. You make me feel like jumping around to crappy pop songs about love. I love you. You make me feel like I can fly, I can touch the sky. I love you. You make me want to scream, shout, cry, dance, laugh, sing. I love you. And I always will. I just want you to know, that on your darkest day, when all hope seems lost, you will always be loved. You will never feel alone, because my love will always be there.

I love you, my Angel.

A Friend.

Another one. This had made it two days in a row that Sookie had walked into work to find a letter addressed to her on her desk. Although, this one was different than the last one.

For one, her admirer had taken to calling her Angel. That didn’t bother her, in fact it made her heart flutter a little, but she wasn’t sure the nickname suited her. Angels were meant to be beautiful, graceful and godlike. She didn’t think she had any of those qualities, so there was no way she could compare to an angel, in her eyes.

Also, he said that he had seen her talking to her workmates about him and his letter yesterday, which she had. She had gone up to a few of the girls during her break and brang up the topic. They were drinking coffee and nibbling on sandwiches and biscuits.

“So… I got a letter today. From a secret admirer.” Sookie smirked and the girls huddled around the one coffee table gasped.

“Oh my God!” Tara shouted, causing a few of the boys (mostly the techies, who were in working on the website updates and a new layout) to look around in curiosity. The girls ignored them though, jumping over the table in the corner of the room to get more information from Sookie.

“What did he say?”

“Where’s the letter?”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Ok everybody calm down, here’s the scoop…”

Sookie told them what she knew from the letter and they began to brainstorm who it could be.

“Maybe it’s Hoyt. Didn’t he say he had a crush on someone?”

“No way! It’s Sam, it has to be Sam.”

“It could be Eric, y’know.”

“Doubt it. I bet it’s that intern, Tommy. My money’s on him.”

Sookie kept her mouth shut, waiting to see what the final verdict would be. Her work friends were always great at match-making, they’d steer her in the right direction. She watched as the group fought for most of their lunch break over who the mystery man was. In the end, they had come up with three names and very good reasons for each.

First off, they had gone with a computer techie called Alcide, one of the top computer geeks and most friendly people in the office. He could start up a conversation with anyone and no one ever had a bad word to say about him. He was a popular guy in the office, and he was cute as a button. The girls had said they’d caught him staring at Sookie a few times, meaning he could like her. Sookie was happy with their first choice. He was a very nice and attractive man. They’d chosen well.

Next, there was Macklyn – known mainly by his nickname, Warlow. He was the funny-man and sweetheart heart of the office. His smart sense of style and quirky attitude indulged everyone. He had dirty blond hair and a dirty mind. He had a joke for every situation, and was- in many ways- the kid brother in the office. His child-like games and actions caused everyone to one; love him. Two; sometimes hate him and three; put up with him anyway.  He was youthful and energetic, but the girls had noticed the serious tone he put in his voice when he talked to Sookie. Almost as if he was trying to get her to see him as serious and respectable, not just the office joker.

And then, there was Eric. Sookie had no idea as to why they’d pick Eric, but let them give their reasons anyway.

“Oh c’mon.” Jessica rolled her eyes. “That thing you two got going on? It has to be him. He’s always by your side. “

“Yeah, he follows you like a lost puppy sometimes.” Pam laughs fondly of her boss. “He always uses your designs, too.” She notes, trying not to sound as if he only used her designs because he liked her. Sookie’s designs were great, and they went perfectly with Eric’s style.

“And he lets you off work early!” Nora spoke up, “It’s always ‘Oh, there’s only an hour left, you can go home early’ but with me he’s all like ‘where are you going? It’s only 4:55, there’s still five minutes left!” She exaggerated, waving her arms in the air. Sookie listened to them, but failed to realise any of the reasons they gave were true.

Sookie had gone back to her desk after the lunch break and thought about what the girls had told her about who they thought her admirer was. Now, she just had to keep watch on the three boys they’d suggested and hope she’d find out which one it is.

But she guesses she won’t be doing that anymore. As she read the second letter, she frowned deeply causing her little wrinkles to appear on her fore-head. But then she had gotten to the second paragraph and she couldn’t help but smile. This admirer she had really could tug on her heartstrings. Sookie just couldn’t help the blush on her face and the wide smile that had formed as the word drifted around her head.

I love you. You make me feel like I can fly, I can touch the sky. I love you.

I love you. You make me feel like I can fly, I can touch the sky. I love you.

She was off in her own little world. She didn’t even notice someone walk up to her, once again, and grab the letter. Fuck’s sake.

“Give me it back.” Sookie growls, but with no luck.

“Oooh! Someone has a boyfriend!” Steve, some office jerk, said in an annoyingly fake deep voice. He had dark hair and hazel eyes. He had a small, pointy nose and thick cheek-bones. He… he kinda looked like an owl. He could be considered good-looking by some, but he wasn’t Sookie’s type. She always kinda wanted to go ‘hoot’ every time he walked past and use her arms as invisible wings and flap them around. But she didn’t.  Maybe just sometimes behind his back.

“Give that ba-“Sookie tries, standing up and attempting to snatch the paper away from Steve’s wing …um, hand.

“Hey everybody!” Steve hoots, causing all eyes to land on him. Eric had even come out of his office to see what was going on.

Steve stood in the front of the room, letter in hand, smiling evilly. Sookie stood at her desk with her head in her hands, already embarrassed about what was going to happen. Steve opened his mouth to speak, giving a speech to the awaiting crowd by the water-cooler. And what the hell, weren’t owl’s meant to be wise? This was not a wise idea. This would only embarrass Sookie, and her admirer.

“Listen to this, guys…” Steve proceeded to read out Sookie’s second letter from her admirer. Everybody watched with wide eyes…

The girls stared at Steve with awe and anger. Stupid dick. The letters were personal, what right had he to read out someone else’s personal letters, and more importantly, out loud to other people.

Sookie looked up to the three hopefuls that could be her admirer. Sam watched in awe, looking from Steve to Sookie and back again. He shook his head in confusion a few times, but didn’t react much other than that. Warlow had gone bright red as soon as Steve began reading the letter. His eyes were cast down to the ground, and hands held behind his back. He looked uncomfortable, he shifted from foot to foot and not once did he look up. Then, standing outside his office door, was Eric. Blind rage and gritted teeth. His face had gone red and his hands were balled into fists. Oh no, he was not happy. Not happy indeed.

When Steve had finished the letter, everybody stood in silence absorbing what they had just heard. That was until the silence was broken with a loud cry of: “MY OFFICE. NOW!” It was Eric, losing his cool and yelling at Steve. Eric looked up and caught Sookie’s eyes once, before looking away and storming back into his office. Steve looked terrified as he followed Eric into the office. The owl had been caught by the fox.

Two months later, and it’s the Christmas Eve party in the office. In the past two months, Sookie had received a letter each and every day and yet she still had no idea who it was that sent them to her. One thing she knew though was that it wasn’t Alcide.  In the past couple of months, he had announced he was engaged. No one in the office had even known he was in a relationship until then. A few days later he had brought his fiancée down to the office for everyone to meet and she was a very nice girl. They made a beautiful couple.

Also, after the little incident with the letter, Steve had been fired for interfering in other people’s personal business. Or, in other words, being a dickhead and embarrassing people. No one really cared if he left; he was mean and nosy anyway. Since then Sookie has been the only one to read her letters. Everybody else knew better than to ask who she got it off.

But now it was the 24th of December, and the Christmas Eve party was in full swing. Neither Warlow nor Eric had brought dates to the party and the girly’s of the office were on a mission to find out his identity. So, to achieve that they split up into two teams.

Tara, Pam and Nora were on team Eric while Jessica and Sophie-               Ann were on team Warlow. Both teams left to find their challenger to see if he was the one who was sending the letters. They weren’t sure how they’d do it but they left Sookie to start the mission.

Sookie talked with some of the techies while the girls were off annoying her two best guy friends in the office. The topic of the letters soon came up, and Sookie found out that the boys were just as interested in finding out who wrote the letters as the girls in the office were.

“We made a bet actually.” Sam laughed, digging Tommy in the ribs with his elbow. “Twenty each. I put my money on Eric a long time ago.” Sam nodded, giving Sookie a grin.

“No way, I put mine on Warlow. I just know it’s him.” Tommy replied, turning back to Bill. “Bill, who’d you bet on again?” He asked in a whisper, causing Bill to chuckle.

“I bet on Alcide, but obviously that’s wrong.” Bill laughs it off and Sookie begins to tell them of the girl’s mission to find the admirer. Now the boys had forgotten their old bet, and began to bet on the two teams.

At the end of the conversation, the bets were equal. Some didn’t bother picking teams as there was no real proof they could use for either side. Although Sookie did now know the boy’s gossiped just as much as the girls. This was great because now she could get twice the gossip.

Soon it was half an hour until midnight and everyone was now back on the make-shift dance floor in the middle of the office. The girls had all just come back, but they wouldn’t tell Sookie anything. She could tell they knew something as they were all trying to hide their grins from her. She gave out to her friends for not passing on any information they had got, but she couldn’t really concentrate much on it right now because Eric had jumped on stage to say a few words.

“Hey guys! I’d just like to say a huge thank you to everyone for all the hard work they’ve put in for this year. You guys are seriously amazing and I wouldn’t have done all this without you. So well done for all the hard work and uh, have an awesome Christmas!” Eric spoke into the microphone and everybody gave a cheer, holding up their glasses in the air and smiling up at the boss man.

It was 11:58 when Nora and Tara grabbed Sookie by both arms and dragged her out of the office, and downstairs to a conference room. Sookie growled as someone put a blind-fold on her and told her if she takes it off, they’ll kick her ass. So she stood, in the middle of the conference room just listening to the noise from the party upstairs.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps in the room. She jumped, and almost ripped the blind-fold off but then realised if she did she’d never hear the end of it. Her friends would never place her in a bad situation like this, which meant she was moderately safe. So she just waited, trying to act as calm as possible. Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she could hear more movement in the room and decided to speak out.

“Who’s there?” Sookie asked, trying to act tough but failing as her voice broke and she sounded just as scared as she felt.

“A friend.” The voice replied. Oh shit. Her admirer had always signed off with the words ‘A Friend’. So then it was him, the secret admirer was in the room with her. Obviously the girls were in on it as they brought her here, meaning they had found out who it was.

“I- Wha- what are you doing?” Sookie could hear footsteps coming closer and someone’s breathing becoming deeper, shallower. Until she felt it on her face, his warm breath smelt of champagne and mint toothpaste. He was standing right in front of her.

“It’s twenty seconds until midnight. And I only want one thing for Christmas.” He says and Sookie frowns.

“What’s that?” Sookie asks him, and he chuckles softly.

“Just a kiss from the girl I love under the mistletoe. Do you think I can have my wish?” He asks and Sookie nods.

“Yes, but there’s a catch. I have a wish too, and if I make yours come true you have to make mine come true, alright?” She asks cautiously and the man laughs softly before answering quickly.

“Alright, Angel.” He agrees.

For a moment, everything is silent. They couldn’t hear the music and noise upstairs, or the people outside coming home from Christmas parties. All they could hear was each other’s soft breathing. And then he kissed her.

At first, he was so scared that he didn’t even move his lips; he didn’t put his hands on her or tangle them in her hair. He stood still in shock, but not for long. Soon, his body un-froze and he realised what was happening. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close into him. He began to move his lips against hers, and was shocked when she immediately kissed him back. She was kissing him, and he couldn’t believe it. He’d dreamed about this a million times before and he his heart was now full of joy now that it was happening. Sookie could feel it too.

She could feel how much effort he put into it, trying to show her how much he loved her. And she knew as soon as he kissed her that it felt right. They were meant to be together.

Eventually, he pulled away. And although she couldn’t see it, he had the biggest smile on his face. He waited for her to say something and he knew what she’d say.

“Can I -can I have my wish now?” She asked, slightly out of breath and trying not to smile herself.

“Oh, alright.” He laughed quietly, before placing his hands on top of the blind-fold and held onto it softly. “Are you ready?” He asked her in a whisper and she gave him a nervous ‘yes’.

Softly, slowly, he inched the blind-fold up, up, up. Until it was taken off and thrown onto the ground. Both of them stand there, looking into each other’s eyes for the longest of time. The new knowledge Sookie received was just sinking in, and she couldn’t help but kiss him once again. She was just as happy as he was right now, and she couldn’t believe he’d ever let her know who he was.

“Why’d you change your mind?” She muttered when they had finished their kiss. “You were sure you didn’t want me to know who you were… what changed?” She asked him. It was a reasonable question, he thought. But it still took him a few moments to answer.

“I wasn’t planning on giving you your wish when you asked me… but after that kiss, and the fact that everybody else knows I just thought ‘she’s gonna find out anyway, and maybe after that kiss she might feel something too.’ So I just…went for it.” He told her and she grinned.

“Well you were right. I do feel something too.” She tells him, wrapping her arms around him as they hold each other close.

“I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear that.” He giggled, kissing her fore-head quickly before resting his head on her shoulder. The smile on his face wouldn’t go away, and he couldn’t help but mutter “Best Christmas ever”; under his breath.

“Yeah.” Sookie agreed. “It is.” They both held each other tightly, not wanting to let go and wishing Christmas would never end. But it didn’t matter, because they’d spend every Christmas for the rest of their lives together. With their children, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they’d live forever in happiness.

“Happy Christmas, Angel. I love you”

“Happy Christmas, Eric. I love you too.”

 


End file.
